XBOX 360 Child Restrictions

[choppster]

I've searched this forum for discussions regarding Xbox live restrictions on child accounts, and not come up with anything. I'm sure this is an issue for other people, and I would like to see if you guys have an opinion on the matter?

I have an Xbox live 'parent' account, linked to my sons 'child' account. It's pretty well locked down, as he's only 7 years old (but a damn fine gamer already). Microsoft have given me the ability to control who he can add to his friends list, I can allow voice comms with just people I have permitted, and I can prevent him from playing games with age certificates over certain ages. I really like this control, as although Xbox Live is generally a good place, you do get some idiots on there. With these controls he can basically play safely with his friends from school, and his cousins, and a few of my friends.

Here's the problem. EA seem to have decided that Burnout Paradise (certificate age 3+) should not be subject to the same parental controls. Possibly other EA games have the same issue, I don't know.

Any attempt to play online, is blocked, with a message explaining that it is because of EA's policy on children. This is a big disappointment to both of us, and totally unnecessary when you consider the fact that a child account is already controlled by an adult who must approve all terms and conditions rather than the kid.

It was suggested to me, that the child ban may be to do with the online advertising aspect of the game, but again, as the adult controlling the account, it's MY responsibility to approve or decline the terms of service.

The only way to allow him to play, is to lie about his age then upgrade his account to an adult. This is not likely to happen, so I guess he will have to be disappointed with just half of a great game, not the full experience.

What do you think?

[insanegoth81]

I agree completely.

It is not up to any other person or company to dictate what someone else's child can and can't do. That is what the parents should be doing. Even though I have no kids of my own, I agree with you completely.

If a game is rated 3+ should it not be available (in total not just offline) to 3+ year old if the parents agree with it?

[choppster]

I have an update on this. I called EA Support and got through to an agent. After explaining the situation to him, he advised that their servers take the age of the player from their Xbox Live account and if they're under 18 the game will not connect. There is a consent form, but it is not relevant to Xbox live games according to this agent.
His recommendation was to call Xbox support and get them to change the date of birth to the same as mine!
Personally I think this is ridiculous advice.
I called Xbox Support, who confirmed that the restriction is at EA's end and told me there's nothing they could do to permit child accounts to play on line. For the record, they agreed that the advice given by EA was not good.
So. Looks like unless I want to bypass the parental controls totally, kids can't play this age 3+ game online whether their parents permit it, or not.
I'm not dropping it there just yet, I would quite like to see an EA statement on this issue.

[Euphoric Fusion]

This all boils down to one thing... EA insisting they use thier own rubbish servers.

Countless times I have been able to play other games like COD4 or Halo 3, but then decide on a game of FIFA with a friend and for some stupid reason can't connect to the EA servers.
Bear in mind this isn't all the time but it is much more frequent than LIVE being down (Christmas excluded )

[EAUK_Phenom]

I believe it's due to the EA Online Privacy Policy (details of which can be found in the EA Online Terms and Conditions page in-game), although I'm not entirely sure. I have raised this internally, though, so hopefully I'll be able to give you an answer (and possibly a solution) to this issue soon (as soon as I receive a reply).

I agree that the suggestion to change your childs age through the console is inappropriate. If you could send me a Private Message with the Support Ticket number, I can look into that for you, too.

Phenom

[choppster]

Thanks Phenom, you have PM.

[Sumo]

Sorry, I don't quite understand.

If you're under 18 you can't play Burnout Paradise online?

[choppster]

Basically, no. I can't speak for everyone, but for the people who I have discussed this with, and in my own personal experience if your Xbox Live account is a child account, then you can't play online. I'm not sure if it's all child accounts, or just child accounts below a certain age, or if its a UK only issue.

Hopefully we will find out very soon.

edit: The message that comes up says:

Your Xbox Live account cannot be used to play this game. This may be due to Electronic Arts policy on children.

Strange that, considering the Terms of Service for this game say :

Electronic Arts encourages parents to spend time online with their children.

[EAUK_Phenom]

I believe the exact minimum age depends on your location and by which laws you are governed, although (as above) I'm not certain of this, so I'm reluctant to comment until I'm aware of the facts (which I'm currently 'chasing'). I'll post back here as soon as I learn anything.

Thank you for the PM, choppster, and thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Phenom

[Sumo]

Originally Posted by choppster

Basically, no. I can't speak for everyone, but for the people who I have discussed this with, and in my own personal experience if your Xbox Live account is a child account, then you can't play online. I'm not sure if it's all child accounts, or just child accounts below a certain age, or if its a UK only issue.

Hopefully we will find out very soon.

edit: The message that comes up says:

Your Xbox Live account cannot be used to play this game. This may be due to Electronic Arts policy on children.

Strange that, considering the Terms of Service for this game say :

Electronic Arts encourages parents to spend time online with their children.

Fair enough.

I suppose it's good to have safety for the littles ones first and what not.

You do get some very silly / childish people online which is a shame.

[toolong/short]

woooooah nelly !

Payday today and this weekend I was off to town to buy this....

But just like the man above, my 2 kids have child accounts.

I guess I will wait and see what happens.

Why not block adverts being sent to child accound from the EA Servers ?

To be honest, I would buy the game to play it, not be fed adverts from companies.

[Pass Da Bifta]

Can't you just untick the boxes that ask if you would like too share your infomation with other EA thingys sorry i don't remember exactly what it says or where it is its in the in-game menu though i hope this some how helps if not i tried :P

[choppster]

Originally Posted by Pass Da Bifta

Can't you just untick the boxes that ask if you would like too share your infomation with other EA thingys sorry i don't remember exactly what it says or where it is its in the in-game menu though i hope this some how helps if not i tried :P

Tried that already, good suggestion though thanks.

[Pass Da Bifta]

sorry i could'nt help its sounds like a stupid idea now lol

(im not calling YOU stupid by that)

[Graeme]

Not that i want to make this worse, and i do agree with you - the whole thing sucks. However, on the back of your box it says "You must be 13+ to register with EA online" which may be a problem. But on the same box it does say they support family settings, which they don't really do too well.

Hopefully you get it sorted though.

[choppster]

It's not just an Xbox issue I guess? Link here http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/b...l-control.html

Did you get any response to your enquiry Phenom?

[MR ORANG3]

I am sick of this too, I turned 18 last Monday, yet I cannot play Paradise or FIFA 08 on Live.

Paradise just keeps telling me it is connecting to EA Servers, which it is blatantly not doing.
FIFA08 says I have to be logged in to XBL (I am) and that I must be registered for the EA Servers (I can't find anything about this anywhere) to play.

Before I turned 18 I used my dads email address as the parent one when I signed up for XBL. But now I am 18 I still can't play.

It all seems pretty lalalala to me, and I am going to trade in FIFA08 and Halo 3 in for Guitar Hero II on Monday after work because of this. If I can't play online - I can't play!

[MR ORANG3]

Originally Posted by MR ORANG3

I am sick of this too, I turned 18 last Monday, yet I cannot play Paradise or FIFA 08 on Live.

Paradise just keeps telling me it is connecting to EA Servers, which it is blatantly not doing.
FIFA08 says I have to be logged in to XBL (I am) and that I must be registered for the EA Servers (I can't find anything about this anywhere) to play.

Before I turned 18 I used my dads email address as the parent one when I signed up for XBL. But now I am 18 I still can't play.

It all seems pretty lalalala to me, and I am going to trade in FIFA08 and Halo 3 in for Guitar Hero II on Monday after work because of this. If I can't play online - I can't play!

Sorry for the red writing I couldn't see what I was typing:

I am sick of this too, I turned 18 last Monday, yet I cannot play Paradise or FIFA 08 on Live.

Paradise just keeps telling me it is connecting to EA Servers, which it is blatantly not doing.
FIFA08 says I have to be logged in to XBL (I am) and that I must be registered for the EA Servers (I can't find anything about this anywhere) to play.

Before I turned 18 I used my dads email address as the parent one when I signed up for XBL. But now I am 18 I still can't play.

It all seems pretty lalalala to me, and I am going to trade in FIFA08 and Halo 3 in for Guitar Hero II on Monday after work because of this. If I can't play online - I can't play!

[vantheman1956]

Got to agree 110% with this thread. What right do EA have to tell me what my son can and cannot do with a 3+ rated game. He's 10, a great gamer (Well overseen and supervised PS2, PSP, NDS gamer for some 3 years) very sensible with the superb Parental controls inbuilt in the Xbox 360 and Xbox live. He gets an Xbox for Xmas after a great year at school, and he saves up and buys Burnout Paradise himself (after having several of the PS2 series) and cannot play online. I borrowed a friends Halo 3 and with 'tweaking' of the PEGI standard on the console he can play this online should I wish him to (which I don't) yet clearly EA think themselves above the judgement of all parents out there, we've only found this out today and no doubt it will be the same with FIFA 08 which he's just acquired.

EA You are wrong in this and I wholeheartedly disagree with your standpoint and I suggest we look to boycott your games until you see sense.

[Ricardini]

Aparently i am not the only one with this problem.

When i played the Demo the ''error'' showed up , but since it was a Demo i thought they didn't had impletemented some option to check for Parents Aproval Settings or something like that, but i got extremely disapointed when i tried to Log In in the Full Version of Burnout Paradise and i just couldn't because i am a child, now, i thought Parental Control was there for something , and since i have it all on ''Aprove All' i shouldn't be having any trouble, this gets me a little disapointed though i am anxious for Phenom's answer on this problem.

( i am indeed looking forward to play Burnout Paradise Online )

Edit: However i can indeed play Fifa 08 without any problem.

[doodah95]

the same happened to me too, i save my money to buy a game i really wanted for months.....bring it home, open the box, load the game.....then nothing on-line, i should have just posted the money to EA and not bothered with the disapointment i felt for the next couple of days.....thanks EA and happy new year............not!!!!!!

[Matt Webster]

There's a number of different issues listed here so I'll address the age one.

When you create an account with EA you have to specify your age settings. This is so that we adhere to various privacy laws that are implemented across the world to protect children. In particular jurisdictions this is 12, in others it is 14 or 18. This is becasue EA will not knowing hold account information of someone 13 or under and there are certain obligations that we have to protect this personal information. Additionally it protects children under 12 from getting online and being able to exchange information via voice, text messaging and now video with others.

However, children under 12 are able to play online by getting written permission from a parent or guardian and sending it to the Privacy Policy Administrator in the relevant country.

We take this obligations very seriously. This is all detailed in the terms and conditions when you sign up to an EA Account. To contact the Privacy Policy Administrator go here

-Matt

[choppster]

Thanks for responding Matt, I appreciate it. It's great news that there is a way of allowing my son to play.

It might be an idea if EA support were aware of this information about under 12's and the Privacy Policy Administrator authorisation?

In my conversation with them (Incident: 080130-001521) they advised me to ask Microsoft to change the age of my child on their records to get around the restriction.

It might also be an idea to refer to this in the game documentation, or in the EA online help system, or on Criterions website, or anywhere obvious - as there are likely to be quite a few people with the same issue in future. I know it's in the Terms of Service but it's a weighty document that many people won't read. But I do.

As it happens, before I started trying to provoke a debate about this on here, I tried to get in touch with EA's privacy policy administrator to request the authorisation form refered to in their terms of service - but they don't publish any phone numbers - just a fax, and an email address which is not replied to. Email sent 26 January 16.12pm if anyone from EA wants to know.

This whole process shouldn't be that complicated surely? I'm having to write forum posts here and in other places, and write to games magazines to try to solve the problem. Why don't EA just make the parental account authorise XBL activity with a password like any other time my son wants to make a purchase, or add a contact?

So when EA finally decide to respond to my email, I can fill in the form that I was told was not relevant and post it by snail mail (apparently) to unlock my son's ability to play Burnout Paradise online. Not perfect, and I suppose it's not meant to be, but it's a solution! - Thanks again Matt.

I'll be in touch if it doesn't work.

[Matt Webster]

Thanks Choppsster, we'll be sure to push at our end as well to make sure that this is sorted out for you. It's unfortunate that the PPA are not responding. I'll see what I can do as well as letting support understand the issues.

Thanks for your patience.

-Matt

[Pass Da Bifta]

Just wanted to say good luck